A New Year's Challenge: Fiscal Fitness

The gyms are packed this month as people try to follow through on their New Year’s resolutions to get into better shape. Sara Imhof, Midwest regional director for The Concord Coalition, wrote in an op-ed Sunday that the nation’s fiscal fitness needs improvement as well.

“In both cases, getting into shape can be so daunting that it is easy to get discouraged -- and good intentions often fall by the wayside,” Imhof wrote in the Cedar Rapids Gazette in Iowa.

While some short-term progress has been made on the federal budget, Washington still needs to address the biggest fiscal challenges, including assistance for an aging population and the unsustainable growth of the federal debt.

Today Concord and U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley are presenting Principles & Priorities, a public interactive deficit-reduction exercise, in Marshalltown and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“What I love most about doing these programs ,” Imhof says, “is seeing how average Americans are willing to come together to confront difficult choices, work out their differences and find solutions. “